Argentine Jews are vanishing, if you go by the records of Jewish communities. Affected by a 50 percent rate of intermarriage and by emigration, their numbers, estimated retrospectively at 310,000 in 1960, have dwindled in the intervening 50 years to 182,000. Yet Jews are very much a part of Argentine life. Thousands of “missing” Jewish Argentines, as these essays demonstrate, are dropping their hyphens and integrating into national society. Their active participation in the evolution of argentinidad is explored in this collection of essays.

In the introductory essay, José Moya compares the status of Jewish immigrants in Argentina with their status in other countries of the Americas. Moya finds that “the combination of being one of the least diverse Jewish diasporic communities in one of the most diverse settings may be the most distinctive characteristic of Argentine Jewry” (p. 19), noting the...